The first days of February were the days when premiere of a new action movie has taken place in Russia. It's called "Kandahar" ("The Crew" in international distribution) after the Kandahar city in Afghanistan - the factual capital of the Taliban movement. It may seem that it's one of the regular action movies based on a completely made-up plot. A Russian transport airplane is hijacked in Kandahar by an Afghan fighter aircraft. The crew is imprisoned for more than a year and then they just escape on their own plane which had been resting nearby all the time. Indeed, can it be real? Without any doubt - YES!

The plot is based on the totally real events. 3 August 1995 was the day when a Russian carrier flew a regular commercial flight delivering ammunition to the forces of so called Northern Alliance in the Bagram Air Base near Kabul. Flying on the height of 8 kilometers the aircraft was intercepted by the Mig-21 fighter, steered by a Taliban pilot. The crew was forced to land at the airport of Kandahar. All 7 crew members were captured and accused of meddling in internal policy of Afghanistan. They were imprisoned in a shed near the Governor's house and were strictly warden day and night. Two pilots and five more crew members were threatened with an execution in accordance with the Islamic rules. But still Talibs neither hurried to kill the "infidels", nor they began to raise any claims.

The pilot of MiG-21 who intercedpted the carrier

All negotiations of the Russian Government, UN and USA to liberate the crew were futile. After months of talks aggressors allowed the first diplomatic and medical group to visit the prisoners. A rumor about Russian doctors floated very fast and many Talibs used this rare opportunity to get qualified medical assistance. All these photos are taken by a member of one of such groups visiting the Kandahar captives.
After some six month of captivity the prisoners and the negotiators began trying to convince Talibs of the necessity of regular maintenance of the captured carrier abandoned in the airport. The Afghans clearly realized that such a machine costs millions and it has a very high strategic value for them. After some hesitating they allowed rare visits of 2-3 crew members to the aircraft. Time passed and plane's maintenance became a regular thing for Talibs which causes no suspicions. The next step was to assure them that a complex maintenance involving all crew members is crucially important for the aircraft standing outdoors for almost a year.
Such a gift for prisoners was given on 16 August 1996 - 378 days after forced landing. It was Friday - a day of prayer in Islamic cultures. At noon most of the warden who came together with the crew to the airport left for the prayer. Seven Russians were escorted to the aircraft only by three wardens. Saying "We need to start engines" the crew closed the door and disarmed the guardians taken aback. The runway appeared to be extremely short for such a big carrier to take off, but the commander Vladimir Sharpatov who was a very experienced pilot managed to take the plane off at the very last plates of the runway. He decided not to fly north towards Russia. He understood that this direction will be patrolled by the Afghan fighters. The course was laid west to Iran and then to United Arab Emirates. Sharpatov held the plane at the nap-of-the-earth so that Taliban radars couldn't discover them.
Six days after the escape a decree on decorating the crew was signed - commander and the second pilot were awarded the title of the Hero of the Russian Federation, the other 5 crew members were decorated with the Order of Courage.

It sounds like the Talibs are so confused about the real world that they have no idea what to do when faced with a decision. They are like children and seem so primitive. They have been so isolated that when the real world intrudes on them they act weird. Also, I did not know the Talibs have fighter pilots and use of jet planes. What’s that all about?

Thanks Chris for your reply and claification. This initial report set off many red flags in my head. My comments about the Talib being primitive does not mean that they are not very dangerous. Their current use of snipers are tearing into NATO troops daily. Any NATO soldier in an exposed position is ripe for a clear shot between his eyes….as we saw this week on the Military Photos website.

Interesting pictures, to bad the story has been falsified. The plane was actually owned by the notorious Russian gun-runner Viktor Bout. It was intercepted and captured that much is true, though the real issue was in the plane was full of arms destined for the Northern Alliance, not the Taliban. Thus they were reluctant to release his crew. The tale of the prisoners tricking the guards to escape is considered iffy at best. It’s been deemed much more likely Bout paid off the Taliban (the plane was full of arms already so he had to sweeten the deal) but to keep up the cover of his illegal operation and what the plane was used for, the prisoners were “allowed” to escape.

I just want to add, while I’m a longtime browser I’m a first time poster. And the only post I’ve made is my initial one explaining the actual story with Viktor Bout. The second Chris (or third, who knows) comments have not been me and I don’t wish to be associated with them.

Love this forum But i really dont get why so many poeple are so emotional. do you really live such slow and boring lives that this is a source for where you get to be emotional, insulting , etc……. Cammon kids get lives, get someone in your lives who is real and be emotional with them , people on this site just seem to get off on critisising Russia or the West when we learn that we are made of the same dough sorry guys to blow your nationalistic bubles but we are , we are all not good not evil we are all human

This is a interesting site.I was curious about the forum so I went into it and I found the olympic medals comments in vladkrs posts.They were very negative by the person above.I guess there are positive and negative people on this site,as I have noticed so far.Someday I will learn how the forum works and blog in there.

USA-20. Russia-4. We dominate you! Your people are inferior to ours. The United States will invade your country and take over. We are better. We are better at every aspect of life. You Russians are inferior. Your atheletes suck major —- and —-. Ha Ha! Poor Russians. Always last at everything. Can’t get any steroids? American strength comes through. We are made of iron, Russian. We will not be defeated. In anything.You will all be speaking English soon.